Level Up
by reine-des-rythmes
Summary: Nami beats some sense into a thick skull.


Usopp felt rather than saw Chopper's back tense, and looked up from their workspace in the shade of the crow's nest to find Nami walking purposefully from the mikan grove to the starboard rail over which Sanji was smoking a cig. Her Clima-Tact was assembled in her hand. Usopp and Chopper looked at each other, and Chopper said, "It's time!"

"Oh god," said Usopp. Chopper stood and Usopp gathered all their art supplies in his arms before doing the same, and with a nod they split, Chopper heading for the infirmary for bandages and bruise salve, and Usopp to dump the paint and brushes in the boys' room and grab Kabuto.

When they got back to the lawn, Zoro was sitting up in the grass to port and staring at Nami, and Luffy, remarkably quietly, zipped down from the crow's nest to squat beside him, looking serious. Usopp glanced around for other crewmembers: he could hear Franky singing downstairs, there was Robin reclining on the steps leading to the steering deck, and Brook must still be in the crow's nest. Usopp kept his eyes on Robin a moment, vacillating on whether to go over and ask, until she met his gaze with a small nod. So she knew what Nami was planning. He was pretty sure Luffy and Zoro didn't know, but he felt confident they wouldn't interfere. In fact — yes, Luffy was grinning, just slightly. His proud smile. Usopp felt a reflection of it tug at his mouth.

Sanji did not seem to notice the ominous air of the deck, even when Nami called his name without an honorific. He turned with a flourish of his hand and removed the cig from between his lips. "Ye-e-ess… Nami-san?"

She was wearing a sleeveless white top that covered her well to her neck, and paper shorts in tangerine which rather matched her hair. She had tied that in a single braid which curved around and forward over one shoulder. Her knuckles were wrapped, and one hand held the Clima-Tact in a loose, familiar grip. Sanji took in all of this with a tiny furrow between his brows.

Nami inhaled deeply, and as she let it out her shoulders straightened and relaxed. "Fight me," she demanded calmly, and lifted the Clima-Tact to point at him.

The cig slipped from his fingers. "Nami-san?"

"I said fight me, Sanji."

He was frozen for an instant, and then blinked a lot. "What for?"

She tossed her head. "Does it matter?"

"Well, yes, of course?"

"What I mean is, you wouldn't fight me even if I had a good reason, would you."

Sanji slipped his hands into his pockets and scuffed the smoldering cig. His glance flickered between the grass and Nami's face. "No, my dear, I would not."

"That's too bad for you." Nami said, and leapt at him.

The Clima-Tact smashed into his face and he crashed into the starboard steps, opposite Robin. Usopp heard a short, surprised chuckle from Zoro, and looked over at captain and first mate to see them watching the proceedings with rapt attention and matching tiny grins. They held their positions. Usopp was now one-hundred-percent sure they wouldn't interrupt Nami's plan. They seemed to have grasped what was going on. Maybe it was a haki thing.

Sanji coughed from his position on the ground and didn't get up. Usopp heard the door leading downstairs open and Franky poked his head out. "Are they at it ag—…" He caught sight of Zoro first, then Sanji, then Nami standing, feet apart, Clima-Tact in both hands like a bat. "Uh, Captain," Franky started carefully, "everything okay?"

"It's fine," Usopp said, and Luffy nodded once without removing his gaze from Sanji, who coughed again. Franky joined them on the lawn, then folded his arms and tilted his head.

"Sanji-aniki act like a perv, or something?" he asked, but Nami spoke again.

"Get up."

"Yes, Nami-san," said Sanji dutifully, and stood. He straightened his tie. "Franky may have a point… did I do something that angered you, my godde—_oof_." Nami had taken a single quick step forward — moving almost too fast to see — and slammed her staff into his stomach. He sailed backward to crash into the wall beside the steps. The wall didn't break, of course, but grass blades and dirt motes flew in the air. Sanji had tried to slow his fall by dragging a heel along the ground.

Nami stood firmly in an offensive stance, and when Sanji remained half-lying against the wall, she spun the Clima-Tact and planted it beside her. "Get up, dartboard."

Zoro laughed out loud at this, and around that Usopp could hear gasps from Sanji and from Franky. He kept eyes on Sanji.

The cook stood and again straightened his tie, then took a few steps toward Nami. Usopp felt a thrilling current under his skin, and his fingers tensed around Kabuto's neck. Observation haki.

"I am fine, love-cook," Nami said. Her cocksure composure was stunning. "I am me."

Sanji halted, staring at her. "I … am sorry I doubted you, Nami-san."

"Shut up and fight me."

"Again, I'm sorry, but I don't understand why —"

"Because you won't!" Nami shouted at him. Thunderous silence echoed her words.

"Of course I won't. You are a gift, to be cherished and loved—"

"But not _respected_?"

Usopp thought Sanji might have had a heart attack. "Whatever do you mean?"

"I mean," Nami said, stepping forward and striking his shoulder so he staggered to port, "that I am smart, of course, but that makes me strong, you half-wit," she struck the other shoulder, and he took a step back, "which many women are, but I am also," she swept his feet, and he jumped back, "your nakama, and I want you to treat me like it."

His back hit the wall. "I don't understand," he said weakly.

She threw down the Clima-Tact and marched up to him to grab his tie and yank his face to hers. "Nakama, Sanji. I know you know what that means to him," she jerked her head in Luffy's direction, "and to all of us. To you it means, apparently, that women aren't allowed."

"What," Sanji whispered, and Usopp pleaded with god that he was paying attention to what she was saying and not the fact that they were breathing the same air.

"You don't fight women," she said, and slapped his face. "Even if they hurt you, even if they threaten this crew, you won't do it. In fact," she slapped him again, _he was just taking it, what an idiot_, "you'd serve them cocktails and hors d'oeuvres while they did it. You'd call them 'beauty' and 'goddess'. Sound familiar?" Then she punched his solar plexus and let him fall to his knees, dusting off her hands while returning to where her weapon of choice lay on the deck. She again leveled it at his stunned face. His lip was bleeding.

"But I… my desire is only and always to treat ladies as the pinnacles of humanity they are," Sanji said finally. "Women are the best of us. I act accordingly."

"You whitewash us," she cut in. "We're all the same to you, aren't we? But we shouldn't be. I'm _nakama_, Sanji." The Clima-Tact spun slowly, and then she thrust one end forward, and Sanji toppled backwards over his heels from a blast of wind. "I'm clever and strong and I've got your back, and you treat me the same as the lowest piece-of-shit bounty huntress who would haul your ass in for execution without a second thought! So what does nakama really mean to you?!"

The muscles in Usopp's jaw tightened. He hadn't thought of that before, and now felt like hitting Sanji too. He looked at Robin. She looked grim, her eyes narrow and a dimple near her mouth giving away how tightly her lips were pressed together. Usopp wondered if she would step in and give the cook a piece of her mind as well.

Zoro had lost all levity and crossed his arms over his chest. Franky had done the same, with a deeper frown. Luffy still smiled, but the intensity of his attention was frightening.

"So get up and fight me, because I'm not like them. I won't ask you to treat women out there any differently." Nami's voice was soft, and Usopp suddenly and distinctly remembered Nojiko telling him how Nami never cried when her family needed her to be brave. "I like that about you, and god knows some of them really need that kindness." She chuckled lightly. "And I certainly don't want you to stop catering to _my_ every whim. But I need to know…"

Sanji stood up, brushed off his pants, and watched the ground between them. "Of course you are different," he said eventually, but did not elaborate. Usopp couldn't see his face, because of the hair, but he suspected that Sanji was thinking about what she was saying. Like, really thinking. And it was probably confusing the hell out of him.

"But I can't tell," Nami said, quiet and sad. "I want you to fight me, something you won't do to any other women, and you won't. Because you don't trust me —"

"No!"

"— to know what I want?"

Sanji stared at her, his mouth hanging open.

"Don't you trust me to hold my own against you? Don't you trust me to be strong? Answer me!"

When he said nothing, she leapt at him again, and the Clima-Tact cut through the air and struck his outstretched leg. And then he tapped it away.

No one on the ship breathed. Usopp couldn't tear his eyes away to see if Brook were watching what was happening, but the impending change was so palpable that he couldn't imagine Brook was unaware of it.

"Zoro doesn't fight you," Sanji said, calmly.

Nami, still stunned from his defense, took a moment to catch her breath. "Zoro doesn't trust anyone except for us." She glanced slyly at the swordsman. "And I think he'd fight me if I told him to."

"Damn right," Zoro muttered. "I can't get into more debt." There were sympathetic nods from everyone except Robin. Usopp thought of how he himself refrained from even thinking about fighting with Nami just because of the repercussions he would have had from Sanji.

Sanji tore his eyes from the deck and met hers, and his jaw was tight. "There's a reason," he began, his voice harsh. "There's a reason I act the way I do. It is not _right_, the way women are treated in this world. You, and Robin-chan too, know all too well how horrid we men can be. I want… I want…"

Nami waited, quite patiently Usopp thought, for Sanji to finish. It was proof of how much she loved him — how much she wanted him to learn from this and change, not to be punished for how he had acted. Usopp suspected that she understood very well why Sanji treated all women with grace and goodness, that it came from a place of righteousness and love, but also, unfortunately, ignorance. His rule was too childish. Nakama had to be different.

"I want the world to change. I want to raise the bar for all men. If there's a chance I can help a woman by being the first kind thing she has ever had in her life, I have to do it."

"This crew was the first kind thing I knew in a long time," Nami told him simply. "Like I said, I don't want you to change how you treat women. I want you to change how you treat me. Back down from every fight with a female — except me. And Robin," she added.

He was silent. If Usopp had had the guts to interrupt them, he would have started cheering. She's reached him. She's getting through!

"Do you understand?" Nami said. She was eyeing Sanji's clenched hands, which trembled.

"I can't…"

She moved through a kata with her staff and twisted it, sending tornadic gusts at Sanji's feet, causing him to trip from a standstill, and Usopp had to cover his mouth to keep from laughing out loud as Sanji fell on his ass.

The cook's arms shook as he levered himself back onto his feet. "Nami-san," he pleaded, then wiped his mouth with his hand. He took a very deep breath. "You … want me to fight you."

She nodded after a beat. "Yes."

He huffed and sighed. "Yeah. Okay."

Nami didn't move. "Okay?" She blinked. "That's all it took?"

His shoulders relaxed. "Do you… not want to fight me any more?"

Her mouth tightened into a thin, grim line. "Prepare yourself," she snapped, and ran at him.

Grass flew, and when the air cleared again Usopp could see Sanji bracing his leg against the swing of the Clima-Tact. Nami's shoulders shook a little with the strain, though Sanji was clearly far from breaking a sweat. They came apart, and Usopp caught a flash of a grin on Nami's face, and saw Sanji had stuffed his hands in his pockets. He heard, "They'll be okay. They'll be okay."

Usopp looked over at the doctor and gave him a discreet thumbs-up. "They will, Chopper."

Chopper just nodded and went back to watching the fight. Nami had called down lightning twice in the few seconds it'd taken for Usopp to reassure his friend, but a single kick from Sanji into her ribs had sent her sailing through the air and into the wall where Sanji had crashed minutes before. The wood around her splintered a little.

Franky shouted, "Oi!" but Sanji screamed, "Shut up!" He didn't move, but was doubled over like he'd been the one kicked.

"Sanji!" Luffy barked, and the cook's back straightened abruptly. He didn't turn around to look at his captain, just sighed deeply when Nami stood up and coughed.

"Good," she said, and ran at him again. He went on the defensive until she actually clipped his forehead with a surprising high kick of her own. Then his hands touched the grass and his feet cut through the air, and she had to keep the Clima-Tact spinning to deflect him.

But he was faster. Usopp had delicately tried to tell her this, three nights ago when Nami had approached him with her idea. There was a nearly insurmountable distance between the levels where she and he were and where Sanji, Luffy, and Zoro were. She could get seriously hurt if Sanji went all out.

She'd flicked her hair out of her face. "Obviously I don't want to get hurt. But Chopper'll be right there, okay? And everyone else too, I imagine. It'll be the safest way to do it."

"You could _not_ demand he fight you, and like, just make him promise," Usopp had said. "That'd be safest."

She had raised an eyebrow. "But how will I know the difference?"

Usopp hadn't said anything, though now, as she stepped rapidly backwards toward the railing, barely keeping up with Sanji's tempered attack, he thought that between nakama a promise should have been enough.

Nami was getting uncomfortably close to the low railing that failed daily to prevent Luffy from slipping overboard. Usopp thought about shouting to her, but he didn't want to distract her —

A heel connected with her cheek, and she sucked in a breath as she went over the rail.

But she stopped falling.

Sanji had neatly rolled back onto his feet to grab her wrist, holding her aboard. There was a pause, and then they looked at each other, Nami still gasping for air and Sanji's shoulders stiff.

It was only then that Usopp heard the giggling and chuckling to his right, and glanced to see Luffy and Zoro both pressing hands to their mouths and trying to stay quiet. Usopp felt a confused smile cross his face, and then he heard Sanji and Nami start laughing too, and he blinked at them.

"Uh," said Chopper, taking a step toward them, as Nami twitched her Clima-Tact and sent its three individual pieces into her thigh holster with a neat one-handed move. Sanji was still holding her other wrist. "Guys… are you okay?"

"Woohoo!" Luffy yelled, clapping. "Sanji's cured!"

"Oi, I wasn't sick —" Sanji started to say, but Nami elbowed his middle. "S-s-sorry, Nami-san," he said, his voice cracking.

She gently extricated her arm from his fingers and tousled his hair, then drew her thumb under the cut over his eye. "I don't suppose I broke any ribs?" she asked.

He patted his sides, then stretched his arms up. "No… not this time."

Amidst Luffy's cackling and Chopper's worried chirping, Usopp watched Nami's face slowly light up as she realized what he'd said. Then she threw herself onto Sanji and squeezed.

"Next time, then?" she asked into his shirt.

He carefully put one arm around her shoulders. Usopp wished he could see his face. "Aye-aye."

Chopper reached them and shifted into Heavy Point to use his fingers to feel Nami's scalp. "You've got a contusion at the back here, which means you'll need something to reduce the swelling. Sanji, hold still and I'll get you some iodine for your cut."

"That's all right, Doctor Chopper, please take care of Nami-san first," said Sanji, and Nami squinted at him but let herself be led to the infirmary. Luffy was still shouting huzzahs and laughing madly, and Usopp saw that Zoro had leaned back against the port rail and was now snoozing with a faint, satisfied grin. Franky walked over to Sanji and clapped him on the shoulder.

"That was manly, Sanji," Franky said, then swooped up the idiot in a hug. "I'm so freaking proud of you, dude!"

"Nggh, let me down, let me down, you shitty tank," Sanji said, but he was smiling. Once he had his feet, he looked around at everyone and then marched over to Robin.

"Robin-chan," he said. She nodded to him, with her own tiny smile, but he did not continue for some seconds. "I have been less than perfect to you. If you would like," he said eventually, "to … uh … also …"

Arms sprouted from his shoulder blades and slapped his ears once before disappearing again. "I'm good, Sanji," she said, and smiled wider. "Some coffee would be lovely, if it's not too much trouble."

Sanji put a hand to his ear, then bowed and said, "Right away, madame!" and twirled to the galley as though nothing had changed.

Perhaps nothing had changed, for him, Usopp thought. But Usopp and Sanji both understood that a lot had changed for Nami, and probably for Robin too. He glanced at Luffy again; the moron was stretched out in the sunshine near where Zoro sat. Usopp hadn't seen him grin like that since he asked Jinbei to join the crew (right before he got turned down, of course).

"Oh, I gotta go tell Brook what happened!" Usopp announced to no one in particular, and giggled as he climbed the rigging to the crow's nest.

* * *

So like. Canon Sanji is literal shit. I don't think I've ever written him. I use headcanon Sanji because he's not a raging misogynist. Headcanon Luffy doesn't stand for any of his crewmates treating people like objects. So.

With that said, headcanon Sanji is still not quite a feminist. He's still got that dumbass rule about fighting women.

But! Headcanon Sanji is trying to be better, with a crew that calls him out on his shitty ways.

Oh, and headcanon Nami and Robin both have gotten really good at hand-to-hand combat. I like to think that Nami knows her way around a quarterstaff and Robin knows knifework. Can you even imagine Robin using her bloom-hands to catch and throw blades? Damn. Do not mess.


End file.
